'tis the season to be merry (but not too merry)

So, two months in to the return to something like "serious" cycling what have I learnt. Well firstly, that old habits die hard. For you amusement and as a reminder to myself for what I suspect are going to be periods of intensive suffering here are the highlights.

1. Drinking 8 pints of beer, a few glasses of red ink and having Chicken Tikka Womble (or whatever it was supposed to be) the night before a two hour early morning "tempo" session is a catastrophic idea.

2. No matter how hard I try I still get drawn to Cycling Weekly and usually end up wasting hours of my life wondering if I can really justify a new set of ultra light-weight tat.

But what happened to the old Parker's adverts and all that detail? Damn the Internet. Those adverts were the best bit.

3. Like a Jack Russell attacking the postie, when I see a set of "30 signs" I have a nervous twitch that propels me up to high speed and then produces a spectacular "bonk" about twenty seconds later.

Where's the postie? Grrrr....grrr.....

4. The percentage chance of getting all members of a club to turn up for training runs in similar (if not identical) kit is 0.0000000000001%.

5. There's always someone faster, better, more graceful on the bike in any bunch ride.

6. There's still nothing like the taste of Nutella on toast and a mug of tea after a ride.

7. The roads of Bedforshire are poorly surfaced and the drag down the A600 from Stondon is something I still hate with a passion.

8. Mike Webb is the funniest cyclist in Britain although he probably doesn't realise it (still).

9. Christmas is a time to get some sneaky miles in so that you can feel a bit smug and get one over your prospective competitors.

10. Turbo trainers are no substitue for any of the above.

Err... that's all for now folks.

Have a great Christmas!

With friends like these, who needs turbos?

Winter has finally arrived and it's safe to say that the balmy November weather is distance memory now. The longs are "out" and the mornings and nights are miserable and dark. All the more reason to pop in to the shed/ garage/ back bedroom and put on some inspirational music and blast away on the Turbo trainer.Except that the Turbo trainer is cycling's equivalent to "the rack", or the sublimely bad "pear of anguish". Well maybe not quite that bad.

The advantage of the turbo though, is that you can control the variables which ordinarily you cannot; you can also watch the telly while you do it; and you can get off and have a cup of tea within minutes of finishing.

The flip side is that all of these things are massively distracting or make it easy to simply pack up. I attempted a gallant 30 minute interval session on Tuesday but the chain on the bike I was on developed an unusual kink (it's an oldish chain and I think it wanted to let me know that it was off to "Time Team" to be analysed and recorded as some form artifcact ancien). Either that, or it was just shagged because I'd managed to make it slip off the "big ring" and get wedged in the derailleur, thereby bending it. Clot.

Anyway, my motivation for this folly was partly to avoid all manner of pre-Christmas tedium and also because of: SomeoneIknowisontheTurbosothereforeIneedtodomoretimeonitthanhimbecausethat'swhat's goingtomatterinthenewseason Syndrome.

Having been described as a racing "Nemesis" I have now taken it upon myself to ensure I beat my goader by the narrowest of margins, e.g. by one-tenth of a second (like at Sharpenhoe 2003), just to cause the highest degree of annoyance  - in the nicest possible sense.

Everyone needs a yin to their yang. I suggest you find a designated Nemesis too, competition is good for the market and all that.

The feeling of losing by 1/10th of a second...

Cheers Steve, this is going to be an interesting season.

Calorie counting

Having managed to get a few rides in on consecutive days of consecutive weekends, I decided to tempt fate and see how much lard has dropped off.

Happily I am now under the 12st mark but our scales aren't exactly the most accurate device. I recorded weights of 7st 4 and 3st 2 but decided on 11st 12 as being the most accurate/ least inaccurate. Anyway, sitting on the bike for more than a couple of hours usually means I need some food so as not to "bonk" - I spectacularly blew up in my first year of cycling on "100 in 8" reliability ride. My late father in law had to shovel Walkers crisps in to me and I can still recall licking the salt off the inside of the three packets I'd necked. Currently, I use a Science in Sport electrolyte drink on every ride, but sometimes a "little bit of what you fancy" helps not only get some carbs back in the tank, but also gives a little mental "pick me up".

If you are on a budget (and are not a strict veggie or vegan) you can look at jelly as a cheap source of energy. A 100g wedge will put 296Kcal back in to the tum; an equivalently sized PowerBar will produce 363Kcal but will cost £1.35 - a quid more than the jelly. Horses for courses though - as it's a bit of a chore to dice up cubes of jelly and clingfilm them so that you can scoff them on the move. Unwrapping jelly with gloves on, while riding at 15-20mph over the pot-holed and icy roads of Arctic Bedfordshire is akin to peeling a tangerine in your pocket on the dodgems.

Somewhere in the "compromise" zone are these little beauties - the School Bar. In nice 20g bars, these are made from real fruit and would churn out 335Kcal if put over the bunsen burner. I now seem to be the "dealer" for school bars and having lured on one of the chain-gang in to my suger-free, fruit based cyclo-den-of-iniquity I may be on to a lucrative sideline. Illicit fruit dealing is not on the Statute Book yet I don't think.

Given it's Christmas time I suspect that Jelly Babies will be under many cyclo-Christmas Trees. And we all remember who used to love Jelly Babies don't we and he can't be wrong.

Training ride

1,100 calories, 2.5 hours around the hills of Chalton, Harlington and the like, 40+ miles.... tea please. And it's humid...

London fatality

Sadly the death toll for 2011 for cyclists in London increases yet again. Many condolences to the family and friends of the young lady involved.

Tragic.

And the purpose of this session is?

Having had my day interrupted by a number of things, not least the weather, my grand plan of getting out for a few hours around the lanes fell by the wayside (no pun intended). Having currently got the "training bit between my teeth" I decided to get on to the time-trial bike on the (yet to be improved upon) Roller-Turbo in the garage and blast along to The Vaccines (I like to think of them as a posh incarnation of The Ramones).

Shelford Designs' rather portable Roller-Turbo (and a bike with mudguards on it - why?)

So, the bike's set up, the turbo looks steady, the HR Monitor is on, 3,2,1....GO!

Hang on, what exactly am I trying to achieve apart from lose lots of fluid and make the garage reek of stinky cyclist?

As it happens, I had got on to the bike with some form of plan in mind. Gradually building up the resistance by going up one gear on the sprocket and alternating between the inner and outer chain-raing and then going up another gear (repeat until delirium sets in) to build up some leg strength and also work on my cadence.

I used to do this using strict 1 minute intervals of inner-ring, outer-ring etc but was a bit less disciplined this time. I get mind numbingly bored after 40 minutes, so I usually don't go on for much longer than this as I find it a bit counter-productive. If you get to hate something, it's less likely to be an activity you'll come back to. I have however done specific sessions (years ago) when I had a set goal in mind, e.g. keeping my pulse at 175bpm for an hour ahead of a 25 mile time trial but this isn't really the time of year for me to be contemplating that.

As close to the Green Jersey banner as many of us will get

On Saturday last (19th) a group of six of us hit the roads around Preston, Whitwell, Kimpton and Tea Green. As the ride was at a reasonable average pace, i.e somewhere between 17-19 mph any "sprints for the 30 sign", or recreations of scaling Alpe D'Huez in Pantani-like fashion seemed to get the pulse and legs going.

It's been a while since I've been able to ride in a bunch like that and have a bit of a sparring session. Having lost a bit of base fitness I did struggle to mark the excellent James Gomm (riding a fixed) in the first half hour or so. I did manage to surprise myself later on in a nutty sprint to the top of some incline near Luton, so it cannot be all bad.

This kind of ad hoc, snappy, tempo riding has been described as "Speedplay" or "Fartlek" (the Swedish for speedplay), training. I used to call it "mucking about". So it is good to know that I have actually been contributing to the scientific canon all this time. The essence of speedplay training is to go with the moment but within a framework which has some goals aligned to it. There is a web-based resource at http://www.turbotraining.co.uk/  which has a series of set templates and user submitted turbo plans, so if you do need to get your laptop to bark at you to keep to time/ effort you can do. This is certainly something which was in its infancy when I last donned the lycra competitively.

Ultimately, think of the purpose of the session and if you are get bored easily then a) turn the music up, b) grit your teeth and get on with it and/ or c) try and get out with a mate or training buddy instead. There's just that certain something about riding in a group that can help keep you sharp over the winter. No one else can turn your pedals but is interesting how a bit of "nip and tuck" (or "science") can focus the attention.

TW3

So that was the week that was. I've managed to get out and do three, two-hour session this week. One on fixed and two on gears. The latter two on a route going out towards Ayot St Lawrence (home of George Bernard Shaw) and working back home through Kimpton and the northern tip of Wheathampstead. One of these ventures was far wetter thant the other.

So, having set up my recently acquired CatEye HR monitor from Paul's shop which has an integral speed and cadence sensor.

What have I learnt?

Well my average HR increased over the span of the three rides, so I may be seeing an improvement in terms of how hard I can push myself "on average", i.e. maybe I'm getting fitter(?) - there are however other variables (weather, route, bike) coming in to play though, so it's bad science to blithely assume that that is the case.

What else?

Funnily enough, the steeper something is, the lower my cadence: the lower my speed: and the higher my pulse.


What else?

That when it's tipping it down with rain I couldn't read some of the smaller numbers on the watch. Which was a tad annoying.

It's just numbers...

I suspect I may not be pushing the boundaries of science any time soon but t is good though to get a feel for my pedalling style "in numbers" as I probably need to improve my cadence having been off the bike (competitively at least) for a few years.

The monitor is pretty easy to set up although I'm not convinced I've measured the tyre circumference too precisely, which I think is giving a slightly "low" speedo reading. I'm sure I was going faster...

The pulse meter and the cadence sensor can't really lie though. Having had a "proper" lab-conditions VO2 max test and lactate analysis done many years ago, I can attest that the HR readings on the sensor tally within a few percentage points of "actuality", i.e. anything over 172 bpm for me is generally in my red zone. That was always my experience in TTs where I tended to level off at around 172-174 bpm when going "under" the hour or in sustained efforts on the club's evening 10 sporting course.

As my mate Webby says, "It's just numbers" but I'm a data and numbers person so it amuses me and you never know, I may even work something out from the data, i.e. riding more makes you fitter.

Fixed gear Sunday

I dragged myself out to the local Club run this morning - it seemed like the Hammer Horror production team were in charge of the weather as there was a lot of fog on the roads and as the ride developed the mist across the fields near Steeple Morden and Ashwell added a very Grimpen Mire feel to proceedings. It's the first time I've ridden with the club en masse for ages. It was good to see so many new faces as well as trade banter with old buddies Mike Webb and Nigel Tooke.

Today's run saw a lot of the Hitchin Nomads riders turn out on the fixed gear and single-speed machines, which could have led to catastrophic wheel touching in the "bunch", but didn't. I had put an 80" gear on my old Ribble track bike, which was probably a touch too big for the route today but did illustrate that a biggish gear (as opposed to say 65-75") can prove to be useful on the inclines as was the case in an ad hoc and rather jaunty sprint for the 30 mph sign near Bygrave.

Two hours riding fixed is like a month of going to the gym in terms of leg work out. Good for the soul and the wallet too although I may have disagreed as I rode out of Ashwell with my mate Ian Miles up a pretty steep climb.

Having tested out a new CatEye Heart Rate monitor for the first time, I could also see what state the old ticker was in. As it happens, it seems to be pumping alright maxxing at 178, which is not far off my max of 183. Need to work on the quads over the winter...

Flip your lid

A recent article in the Hitchin Nomads newsletter provided a bit of personal insight on the ups and downs of wearing a cycling helmet. The inspiration from the article was drawn from the author's recent destruction of their own hat due to rider-influenced, gravity assisted destruction, i.e. riding in to an inanimate object.

A good mate of mine (you know who you are) managed to not only ride in to a parked car but also, some weeks later, performed a tete-a-tete with a Wheelie bin. He got a ban for the former by the RTTC and I had to help him bend his tribars back in to shape to avoid a second strike. I'm pretty sure his lid got trashed in incident #1. He won't be the first nor last to have a tumble, my own riding history features a catastrophic smash, in which I got "totalled" by a driver (his fault, proven in court) who decided that the Give Way signs and the paint on the rode were indeed aesthetically pleasing but not something which gave rise to the use of eyes, brain or his brake pedal.

After I had skidded along for 10 metres and made a perfect connection with the kerb and regained consciousness I began to realise how lucky I was to be in one piece (more or less). I had the wit to keep my helmet on in case I had fractured the noggin or worse, but when Johnny Paramedic arrived on the scene and had gotten me to lie flat and remove my helmet I saw how much impact had been taken by Met's marvellous contraption and not my skull. I had a sore head for a few days but at least the "important bits inside" were in no worse state than when I set off (debatable I know for those who know me).

Insert head.

So the hat/ no hat debate is a clear one for me. What little brain I have, I'd like to keep thanks. Maybe there can be more of a focus on issuing Dunce's Caps to morons who have no MOT, Insurance or Driving Licence instead?



Ironically, I was wearing an accident insurer's jersey.

Black jersey

A very poor show indeed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15673321

Tyred out

The beautiful autumnal colours of the leaves and fields are a sight to behold as the mist lifts and the roads open up.

The pheasants flit from field to field and the idyllic landscape is blighted only by the site of two lycra-clad fools attempting to repair a puncture which was caused by the catastrophic failure of a "Halfords special" tyre.

Rule 1 - don't buy cheap gear
Rule 2 - don't put the tube you've taken out back in to said tyre (as it won't inflate if there's still a big hole in it)
Rule 3 - see Rule 2 prior to using up a CO2 cartridge for no apparent gain
Rule 4 - always have a crafty look at your mate's bike to avoid Rule 1 coming in to play

The advantage of a truncated ride is more tea and biscuit scoffing at the end.

Not much biking, but plenty of coding and web development in my spare time for my mate Paul. Hopefully this will go down a treat.

http://www.paulsbikes.net

Are you ready?

And in to the inbox comes a note from Lord Seb of Coe that the rehearsals for the big Summer Fete are up and coming in the new year. Now it's November there's not much of 2011 left, so possibly the possibility for Mr C**k-up's visit to town is now under great(er) scrutiny.

The velodrome in London (yes it is hard to believe how few there actually are in the UK per capita/ per cyclist) is playing host to a UCI event in February and tickets seem to be at a reasonably priced level.

Having not received an Olympics ticket in the ballet I am still deciding whether to metaphorically "cut off my nose to spite my face" and not take an interest...

...what is really hacking me off is the number of corporates, such as Lloyds Bank and EDF Energy etc who are sweetening deals or their product offerings with the chance to win Olympic tickets. Shows where the balance of power lies, i.e. with the corporate hospitality money men and shiny suits. But hey, it's the Olympics, did you expect equality.

The cycling event in February is at least good chance to see the venue and some of the prospective "hopefuls" and also still smell the paint while it's drying.

Track Cycling – 16–19 February 2012The final round of the 2011-12 UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics will bring the best track riders from around the world to the brand new Velodrome on the Olympic Park, purpose built for the London 2012 Games.
Ticket prices range from £10 to £40

Convergent devices

Having located and dusted off various bikes, accessories and components, I've noticed that my trusty Polar Heart Rate Monitor and speedo has given up the ghost. This has provided the excuse for open-mouthed pointless surfing of cycling websites and the like, but I'm no nearer getting my head around what I should purchase to aid training.

The choice and funtionality available to consumers now is somewhat wider than it was five or six years ago - a catalyst being the advent of the smartphone or convergent phone, camera, espresso maker that seems to dominant life today.

Garmin seem to have become an increasingly significant player in the recreational leisure market, have just announced this iPhone/ Android app which, with optional ANT+ adapter (for the iPhone) which enables you to record heart rate and cadence. The app is available for under a quid (£0.69) via the Android market/ iTunes Store.

I suspect that this kind of device won't be something that will figure tie-locked to many people's tri-bars but it will make for a pretty good distress flare for those "where the hell am I?" moments  and for those, worse still "I would have to get a puncture today of all days and need to call Mrs D to get me home as I've forgotten my spare cotter pins..." moments.

Plus, everyone likes to ogle at maps, don't they?

Gone in sixty minutes

Having been persuaded, i.e. told, to amble in to the local town centre on Sunday afternoon I managed to slip the lead and have a covert sortie in to the local Waterstones. Our branch is not the biggest nor does it offer the least expensive range of reading matter in the known universe but sometimes it does offer the occasional gem.

Nestling near the ghosted biographies of several Carlos Kickaballs was "The Hour" by Michael Hutchinson.

"Hutch" is a bit of a legend on the UK time-trialling circuit. He has not only held and maintained several of the national titles and comp' records but he's also a pretty approachable chap to boot. Well, he always "let on" whenever I said hello to him. Many of us who rode the F1 courses a few years ago (and still) would have been passed by him as he zoomed off to post some ridiculously good (winning) time.

"The Hour"  doesn't only cover Huthinson's own attempt to beat Boardman's "Athlete's Record" of 49.441 Kilometres (which has subsequently been bettered the less feted Sosenka), it also pulls together anecdotes and references to previous riders and record holders. Amusing tales of stretchy tape measures, adultery, substance abuse and general eccentricity (involving washing machine parts, cornflakes and overshoes to name a few) and chicanery abound.

The book is really well paced read (partly because the prose is so clear and the topic interesting - maybe it has more limited wider audience) but what is really intriguing is the fact that Hutchinson had the single-mindedness to keep pressing on with his initial attempt despite the interventions of frame-builders who couldn't follow designs, coaches and pro's who thought he was misguided/ daft and near fatal combinations of chicken sandwiches and bad hotels off the M45.

Fair play to him on a good tale well told and even fairer play just for contemplating something that Merckx said had taken years off of his life expectancy.